


30th

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Series: Concatenation Timestamps [9]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: Birthday, Cats, Drunk Sex, Established Relationship, Fluff, Friendship, Love, M/M, Rimming, drunk hilarity, drunkennes, surprise part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-30 10:11:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6419683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I know how much I love you, and it’s a lot.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“That’s hardly specific,” Q replies, laughing when James pushes in deeper in reprimand.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“To the moon and back,” James offers next, smiling when Q tuts. “More than the number of grains of sand on the beach.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Is love calculated numerically?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“It’s going to be in spanks if you don’t hush,” Bond laughs against his shoulder. </i>
</p><p>Our little quartermaster turns the big 3-0</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It starts as a tension, a straightening of the spine, a slowing of footsteps. Q knows it is most likely entirely irrational, a worry for naught. He thinks of how he has been taught to anticipate the worst case scenario in every situation, and to find relief when it never goes quite that wrong.

The worst, he supposes, is that someone’s gotten into the house. But had they, truly, half the street would be in shambles. That wouldn’t be Q’s doing, of course. His system’s response would be a mass shutdown, doors locking and alarms screaming. No, the damage would come from James, who spent the day at home, and who takes less even kindly to his home being invaded than Q does.

With no sign if debris and panic, no eerie silence, no klaxons, Q sets his mind at rest that both the house, and James, are well.

The cats, however…

No. Had the cats been in danger, James would not have told Q to come home at his leisure, he would have asked him calmly to come home sooner. He would have taken every possible step necessary to make sure their furry children were safe.

And they are. They are safe. 

Q huffs a breath and takes the steps to the front door. The feeling is still there, still tickling the back of his skull to the point of discomfort, but whatever it is, he knows it is none of the horrors he’s imagined. So, with a sigh, Q turns the key.

It’s dark inside. It’s dark outside, too. Q squints to seek out any source of light but finds none.

“James?” He calls out softly, shutting the door behind himself. A recently-installed print scanner reads his thumb and the locks clatter shut again. “Are you asleep?”

“I wouldn’t be with you making noise like that.”

“Christ,” Q sighs, swallowing his heart back down from his throat. He turns on the lights and his heart never finds a steady pace again when there’s suddenly a mass of voices from behind him. Ecstatic cries of _happy birthday!_ result in Q nearly dropping his laptop case, the lights flashing on, and Desmond tearing from the room and up the stairs with his furry tail uplifted.

Q isn’t proud of the curse that finds its way first to his lips when he takes in a living room full of his family and friends.

“Eloquent, my love, as always,” James tells him, stepping forward from the throng to kiss him softly on the cheek. “It was your mother's idea,” he whispers, before taking Q's bag from his shoulder and his computer from his arms.

“It’s good that we know and love him as the silent stoic type,” Josephine says, to an amused cackle from Eve beside her, and a gentle scoff from Quinn’s mother.

Q takes them all in, eyes wide for a moment more before his expression trains itself to calm again. He’s unable to ease the scarlet blush from his cheeks, but manages a smile despite. His parents are here. Moneypenny and Sheppard and Tanner. Bond, who brushes a kiss against his brow and steps away to set his things away.

“How unexpected,” Q laughs, a little higher, a little louder than he means to be. “All of you. Here. Together. From so very many places in my life.”

_”Right,” Bond says. “So we’ll need to be a bit undercover.”_

_“How so?”_

_“His parents don’t know he works for MI6. They don’t even know that he works for the government.”_

_Josephine and Eve exchange a glance, and with brows lifted, Tanner laughs against the rim of his pint glass. “What on earth do they think he does?”_

_“He’s told them he’s in finance,” James responds, amused. “Which means that so are we.”_

_“Oh excellent,” Tanner smiles, cradling his lager in his hands, blinking at the confused looks he receives from all involved. “I was in banking for four years.”_

_“Good. We'll turn to you, then,” Eve laughs. “I barely passed trig in high school.”_

_“You actually don't need trigonometry for -”_

_“Why finance?” Josephine asks._

_“Honestly, I think it was the first thing that came to mind when they asked him,” James admits. “But I’m not going to be the one to blow his cover with his parents. I already told them we were married.”_

_“Q didn't tell them he got married?”_

_“It is easier pretending to be in finance,” Tanner reasons._

“Honey, you spend so much time at work, we couldn't let your friends miss out on such a special occasion,” Amelia says, stepping close to pull her son into a hug. “Besides, James insisted.”

Q returns her hug warmly, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Of course he did.”

“Had to rush right over here from the bank,” Eve grins. At her side, Tanner parts his lips and before he can say anything, her elbow wedges neatly into his side.

Q’s squint is subtle, but not at all displeased. He steps just past his mother and offers his father his hand. They shake once, firm. “About time we got to visit,” he says. “That’s quite a security system you’ve got there. Seems a little much for this neighborhood…”

“One can’t be too careful protecting privileged documents,” Tanner chimes in, and when Q’s father looks back to his son, Tanner raises a brow at Eve, a little smug.

“Are you going to come in, or just stand in the doorway?” Josephine asks, grinning. She’s done her hair up in a braid, wrapped neatly around the crown of her head. Q could swear she’s wearing make-up. It’s a far cry from the uniformly severe ponytail to which he’s accustomed, his protege always insistent on putting her work - and her mind - before focusing on appearance.

“To be honest,” Quinn manages with a laugh, “I’m not quite sure what to do. I don’t think I’ve ever had a - a birthday party before. Is this a party?”

“It certainly is, now that you're here.” James is back, and Q now notices dressed in a soft dark violet shirt with the top two buttons open. His throat is dry when he tries to swallow. “And we can finally open the champagne.”

“There’s champagne?”

“And food, believe it or not,” James grins at him, bending to gather Turing to his chest as the little cat seeks for an escape from the swarm of people who have pampered him with coos and cuddles while they waited for Q. “Eve cooked. And Tanner,” he ducks his head with another warm smile, “insisted on baking.”

James hands the little cat to Q and kisses him again. “Breathe, darling, it's only us.”

He does. It is only them, his family and his dearest friends. There is no one in the room with whom he wouldn’t happily spend an evening, and with the seemingly catastrophic combination of two very separate parts of his life now past, Q finds that he’s delighted. He works off his shoes and his coat in quick shrugs, alternating Turing from arm to arm to do so.

“Tanner,” he says, as Josephine follows James to the kitchen. “I didn’t know you bake.”

_“I rarely have the time, or the occasion.”_

_“You could bake for the office.”_

_“That rather goes back to the part about not having time,” he says to Eve, her chin in her hand as she watches him with pleasant surprise._

_“I don’t really cook,” Josephine says to the table. “I never learned how to make anything properly. Am I old enough to work at a bank?”_

_Bond regards her with an arched brow, and a sudden keen awareness of the fact that they’re meeting together in a pub. “You’re old enough to work where you do now. How old are you?”_

_“Twenty.”_

_Eve laughs, less at this revelation than at the fact that it is a revelation to James. “Twenty,” he repeats. “Shouldn’t you still be at school?”_

_“I quit,” she says. “When they gave me the offer. Q wasn’t happy about it, but it was my second degree anyway. Oh! I can buy the alcohol!”_

_“That’s the spirit,” Eve grins. “So we’ve got food, cake. Are you making a cake?”_

_“I can. Or biscuits, or croissants…”_

_“We’ve got cake,” she interjects, and with good-natured reserve and a meaningful brow raised, adds, “And we’ve got drinks.”_

_James takes up his beer, and with a similarly deliberate smile sips it. “We've got drinks.”_

“No, well, just one.” Q takes the flute offered him and laughs when the first - still sober - rendition of Happy Birthday begins as he lifts his glass. “Thank you.” He kisses James first this time and proudly chugs his champagne.

“Thirty is a big one,” Josephine grins, passing him another flute and taking the empty one. This champagne is slightly softer, a pink thing Q squints at but takes without question. “Most people your age are still struggling to figure out what they want in their lives. But you're already married, you own a house, have a good job -”

“Friends,” Tanner adds.

“All that's left is the children,” Eve tells him, winking.

Q, James, and their now-shared parents draw a breath in tandem, and for wholly different reasons. Edward’s brow creases in a confusion he’s too polite to ask clarified. Q pales. Amelia brightens by contrast, and James shrugs a single shoulder.

“We have cats,” Q finally says, taking a sip as his mother turns to him.

“That’s not the same at all, Quinlan. You’d be a wonderful father.”

“I really, really wouldn’t,” he manages.

Josephine shakes her head, tucking a hiccup behind her hand. “You would,” she protests. “You’d have them writing code before they could even speak.”

“James would be fantastic,” Eve suggests, sending him a wink when he gives her a dry look. Tanner considers it in turn and nods.

“He would, actually. You would. Now that - ah, now that life has quieted down a bit.”

“That kid would have a hilariously exciting upbringing,” James says, finishing his glass and accepting a beer from Josephine as she makes another round with the drinks.

“It does take a village,” Edward agrees, to a chorus of delighted voices as they raise their glasses again. Q accepts another glass of something not bubbly and presses a grin to the back of his hand. Around him are people who aren't awkwardly talking to pass the time. Around him are people who love him. People he loves, too, and trusts entirely. Around him is his family.

“You better let him down,” James whispers, watching the kitten wriggle and set his back legs to Q’s arm. “He has been overwhelmed my cuddles today, poor thing. I don't suppose he knew just how charming he bloody was until that moment.”

As conversations move around them now - between Tanner and Amelia, Edward and Eve and Josephine - Q hums a note of feigned disapproval, allowing Turing to slip to the floor. “And now he’ll never forget it. He’ll wake us up at all hours demanding attention.”

“Just like the other two, then.”

“Was Desmond alright?” Q asks, leaning to look up the stairs. When Bond settles to his hip against the back of the couch beside him, Q’s cheeks suddenly warm. “He seemed startled, poor dear.”

“I’m certain he’ll survive it,” Bond assures him, resting a hip against the back of the couch and stroking his finger against the back of Q’s neck. “Will you?”

“His being startled, thirty, or the party?”

“Let’s take the last two.”

Q sips whatever it is he’s been given, sucking the taste of it from his bottom lip. “For the first, let’s leave it at ‘I bloody well hope so’,” he says, as his mother glances to him. He lifts a hand in deference and apology for his language, and they share a smile. “As to the latter,” he says, tilting his head against James’ gentle touch. “Yes. Yes, absolutely. Is it redundant to say that I didn’t expect this?”

_”Quinlan was never a boy who wanted large gatherings of people,” Amelia says. “Most of his birthdays were spent with his father at the university bookstore, in high school, spending his birthday money, or at dinner with the two of us when he was actually at university.”_

_“I see,” James smiles, sipping his tea. One of the older cats has settled against his leg with a deliberate flop and he hasn't the heart to move it. “Perhaps we should keep it traditional then.”_

_“Don't be silly,” Amelia laughs, leaning over the table and smiling when James takes the cue and leans in as well. “It is about time that boy enjoyed his birthday. It means the world to his father and I that he comes to see us so often, but he is so young, still, only thirty! He needs to be allowed to spread his wings. He needs to be shocked into the knowledge that he has his life yet to lead, and good people to guide him.”_

_James resists a wider smile only for the company he keeps, a natural response honed sharp to read a situation and respond appropriately. Quinn’s parents are quiet people, reserved and entirely _English_ in their manner. Bond tempers himself appropriately, and without trouble._

_“You think he’s too serious,” he asks, brow lifting._

_“Far too serious,” Amelia clucks. “He’s always been that way. I don’t know if it’s that we had him later in life, and didn’t play like parents do now, but he was always a very somber child. Oh, he had his outbursts…”_

_“He did have those,” Edward adds, turning a page in the paper._

_“And certainly surprised us once or twice,” she continues, giving James a meaningful little smile. “But I’ve never seen him, oh - you know. Cut loose. Perhaps he did at university…”_

_“I’m certain he did,” Quinn’s father says. “I’d be damn sure of it. First taste of freedom and all that.”_

_“But it seems such a bloody shame - excuse my language - to see him so old already. There’s time for that,” she laughs. “Years and years of it.”_

_James’ smile narrows his eyes and he takes another sip of his tea. “What did you have in mind?”_

“Can I have another, please?” Q smiles as he hands his glass off to James. “Or a sip of yours? Yours smells lovely.”

“It’s a beer,” James laughs, but he does pass his bottle obediently over for Q to drink from. He snares Eve on her way past and kisses her cheek in thanks as she carries yet another dish to the sink.

“Flirt.”

“You’re wonderful.”

“I know I am. Be sure to try the asparagus.”

“I feel like I’m in a strange otherworldly comedy where neither of us work for the Service,” James says, ducking his head to look at Q, smiling wide when he hiccups and immediately presses a hand to his face. “Do you think we could pull this off? Evening get-togethers and weekend barbecues? Dull and normal and safe?”

“It’s not going at all poorly so far,” she considers. James settles against the counter beside her and she hands him a plate to wash, taking his place as he steps to the sink. “You two are bloody adorable together.”

“Don’t tell him that.”

Q’s loud, snorting laugh carries from the living room, and from beside him, Josephine giggles giddy.

“I’ll be honest,” she says. “I thought it was a mistake, when rumor first spread. Not that it wasn’t true - I’d not put anything past you, especially when it comes to shagging someone you shouldn’t be. But M was concerned, as well. Last thing either of you need is a distraction out there, but…”

“But?”

She shrugs, smiling a little and slipping a curl behind her ear. “It’s been far from it. The only thing you love as much as each other is the job, and barring that little adventure to South Africa, there’s rarely been a team who made it seem so damn effortless. Dinners and little evening parties seem entirely within your capabilities, 007.”

James turns to look at the people in his living room, Tanner animatedly speaking to Edward about something, Amelia looking on, Josephine and Q giggling like children on the couch. James’ eye slips to the shadow that slinks down the stairs and he snorts softly when Q exclaims joyfully and ducks to gather Peter to himself.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, turning to look at Eve again. She raises an eyebrow and sucks clean her fingers where moments before was a tiny pancake and a twirl of salmon.

“Whatever for?”

“Being good at your job.”

She hums, smiling wide, and this time leans to press a peck to his cheek. “Remember that come Secretary’s Day,” she says, sliding by to return to the living room and snaring up another bottle of champagne as she goes. “Who’s in need of a top-up?”

Q and Josephine lift their glasses. Tanner and Q’s parents decline amiably. Bracing Peter to his chest, Q mouths his thanks to Eve as she fills his glass.

“And who is this?” Amelia asks, reaching over to offer her fingers to Peter to sniff. “We’ve not made acquaintance yet.”

“This,” Q says, “is Peter. He was the first to join me, and the first to leave me. You see, I’m not his person anymore.”

“You’re not?” She asks with a little laugh.

“Oh no. No, no, no. He’s taken entirely to the terribly charming, and often simply terrible, James Bond. You should see how he clings to him. James,” Q calls out. Bond sets the last dish aside and glances upward. “Call Peter to you.”

James bites the inside of his lip. Q's cheeks are pink and his eyes bright. He smiles without fear that someone will judge him for it, he laughs loudly and he reaches for people to touch them. He is beautiful. And he is entirely sloshed. 

Pressing his lips together, James whistles sharply, just once, and calls Peter’s name. The little cat trills his pleasure and mashes against Q as he waits for James to call him again. It has become a game, a ‘hard to get’ scenario both he and James exploit mercilessly. So the agent tilts his head and crosses his arms, and calls him again.

This time, the little shadow slips from the couch and approaches James with a stretch and a chirpy greeting. He’s already purring before James sets a large hand beneath Peter’s belly and lifts him.

“He's figured out who cooks in this house,” James says, walking back to the living room.

Q lifts his glass and his free hand alike, brows raised. “You see? He doesn’t mind me at all anymore.”

“James, or Peter?” Eve asks, hiding her grin behind her hand.

“Either of them,” Q says, taking a breath and correcting himself. “Neither of them.”

“Cats never mind anyone,” Amelia reminds him, and Quinn lifts his glass to this as well. He takes a drink, sighs, and laughs brightly.

“Neither do secret agents.”

In the quiet that follows, Peter chirps loudly, demanding petting to resume from the agent who’s stopped. James smiles and makes his way languidly back to the couch.

“Nor drunk little boys,” he says, kissing Q’s hair. He can feel the tension slip away like a sigh around them, and nuzzles Q’s curls a moment longer.

“I’m hardly a boy,” Q pouts, his blush bright as he sinks lower on the couch and smiles sheepishly.

“Compared to us, you certainly are,” Edward tells him. Amelia turns to lovingly swat his arm and James ducks his head to pour Peter into Josephine’s lap and whisper into Quinn’s ear.

“And in three years, you will be celebrating my fiftieth with me, kid.”

Q blinks up at him, lips parted. The conversation resumes a comfortable tenor around them, his slip taken as some obscure in-joke by his parents who don’t know, and treated easily as such by those who do. Quinn’s got no mind for it now, however, nor for the cake that Tanner suggests they share. Quinn’s got no mind for anything but the sudden warmth that James’ words spark beneath his skin.

“Christ,” he whispers, bringing his drink closer when James reaches for it. “Is it so close?”

“Three years,” James says again with a wry smile. “It isn’t _that_ close.”

Biting his bottom lip, Q grins, eyes hooded. “And I’ll only be thirty-three.”

“That’s how it works, generally. Please don’t unravel my delusions that you’re not simply attracted to older men, darling.”

“I’ll unravel whatever I like,” Q declares, delighted. “We all have to grow up and accept reality sometime, Bond. Only - only some of us grow up faster than others. Seventeen years faster than others.”

James laughs and kisses him again, humming when Q squirms all his limbs onto the couch and turns his cheek to him.

“You’re a right shit,” he whispers. “And I love you so much. Also, I’m cutting you off. No nightcap for you.”

“No. You stop at once,” Q declares, taking another swig of his drink and tilting himself away in a sprawl as James reaches for it. “I’m an adult. I’m thirty bloody years old -”

“And you’re pissed after three glasses and a few odd sips,” James tells him fondly. A quick movement catches the glass from Q’s fingers and James finishes it in one, clicking it back to the table. “Now come eat the cake Tanner made for you before I ravish you right here on the couch in front of everyone.”

Propping himself up on his elbows, Q’s brows raise. “Would you?”

“Absolutely not,” Bond tells him, catching Quinn’s offered hand to tug him to his feet. He wraps an arm around his waist and sighs against his brow, feigning oppression to hide his pleasure at how relaxed his squiffy husband’s become. “I am a gentleman, Mr. Bond.”

“I am Mr. Bond,” Q grins, nose wrinkling. “We both are.”

“Yes sir,” James whispers, smiling wide as he kisses Q with a deliberately loud noise to send him laughing towards the kitchen. Another rendition of Happy Birthday that Q joins in on scares Peter back upstairs before the cake is served.

There are, in truth, two cakes. One a deep and rich chocolate with spiced cherries and heavy cream, the other a cool tiramisu, with coffee and rum.

“Tanner,” Q declares, making his way over and wrapping his arms around his friend who stands stiff with surprise at the show of affection. “Bloody good show. Unbelievable. Your talents are wasted at the -” A loud hiccup has Q pressing his fingers to his lips in apology. “Bank.”

“I don’t think they’re wasted,” Tanner murmurs, brow creased.

“Combine them,” Josephine grins. “If you don’t bring biscuits in next week, I’ll be livid.”

“I don’t even see you during the day.”

“You could,” she says. “You could, if you had biscuits.”

Eve meets James’ eyes and they share a smile before she hands Edward a plate. “I feel like we’re the only adults in the room,” she murmurs to him. Edward’s blush resembles Q’s own so much that Eve simply gives him a grin and lets him be.

“Quinlan,” Amelia says, and Q straightens, clearing his throat. “I do want to discuss with you the idea of grandchildren.”

“You should discuss it with James,” he says, shrugging up a shoulder as he forks off a piece of tiramisu. “He’d be an excellent father. He’s so kind to the cats, and if one can be patient with them, children should be a walk in the park.”

“It is a discussion I should have with you both,” Amelia points out. “They would be your children.”

James shakes his head and squeezes the back of Q's neck gently as he passes him. He offers an apologetic smile to Amelia who waves it off with one of her own.

“I’m very happy he's enjoying himself.”

“I’m sorry he's seemed to have hit his limit so quickly,” James says, leaning against the wall so he can comfortably talk to Quinn’s mother. It's a relief to him that he gets along well with Q’s parents. He hadn't expected to get along with them poorly, but they have accepted him as almost another son of theirs. It's a feeling he's missed.

“He was always a bit of a lightweight, poor boy. He gets it from his father.”

“I hardly think so,” Edward interrupts, amusement underlying the apparent offense in his words. “I can keep my feet with two bottles of wine in me.”

Amelia hums. “Yes, absolutely. Both feet, right up in the air.”

Edward yields a smile, genuine and bright despite how he tries to temper it, as his wife laughs, delighted by her own joke. "Always a wit, my Amelia."

"Only the one, though," she says, pressing her fingers to her lips, then holding one up. "A single wit. That's all I've got, I'm afraid."

He takes her hand and brings it to his lips. A chaste kiss touches her knuckles and she tuts, though no less pleased for this mild chastisement. Their son presses the side of his hand against his nose to hide a snort, unsuccessfully, at something Tanner's said, and Bond can't help slow his breath as his heart kicks a little faster and his smile widens.

They will have this, too - the stability that comes with age, the comfort that comes with such intimate familiarity. A lifetime they'll share together, now that they've grabbed hold of it. Dinner parties and evenings with friends. Quiet nights spread across the couch. Weekend mornings of tea in bed, their cats - three or four or however many Q inevitably insists on rescuing - curled around them.

Q pivots around the table, a movement damn near to dancing. His plate in hand and sweet speared on his fork, he leans the length of his body against James and offers him a bite. “Why we eat such dreck in the cafeteria’s beyond me when Moneypenny and Tanner can cook like this.”

“Not exactly in the purview of our work,” Eve says, amused.

“Not exactly in the budget either,” adds Tanner, wry.

“We should change the budget,” Q decides, nodding slowly. “We should. Revolt as one. Go on strike until we are allowed to eat cake and pasties at work.”

“He’s so cute,” Jo whispers to Eve as she walks past. The other merely hums and ducks to kiss Amelia’s cheek.

“That’s me done for the night, I’m afraid,” she says. “My boss will be on me for a report ridiculously early in the morning, and I might as well give sleeping a go.”

“Poor dear,” Amelia sighs, gently patting Eve’s shoulder. “Remember the chamomile I recommended. It does wonders after a stressful day.”

Eve shakes hands with Edward and turns to the hosts of the party with her arms crossed and her brow raised. “Well, gentlemen?”

“Well,” Q replies, nodding sagely, still leaning on his husband. “Very, very well, in fact. I would say too well but that is less a compliment and more a chastisement, and I am certainly not going to chastise you for such an amazing evening. Thank you.”

Eve’s lips quirk and she sends a sly look to James. “You’re very welcome. Enjoy being thirty. Before you know it, forty will sneak up on you.”

“I’m sure it won’t catch you off-guard,” James tells her, smiling. “It’s a slow-moving target. Much easier to hit.”

She gives him a dry look, but the hint of a smile lingers in her eyes. Her lips thin just enough to convey that she’s holding back a few choice remarks because of the company they currently keep. “Mr. and Mrs. Holt,” she asks. “Can I give you a lift?”

“We were just going to call a taxi,” responds Amelia. “Really, don’t trouble yourself.”

“For what it would save us, I don’t mind her troubling herself,” Edward remarks, feigning a grimace as Amelia nudges him with her elbow.

“It isn’t a bother at all.”

“You’re not going too, are you?” Q exclaims with a sigh. “It’s only going on… Christ,” he says, squinting unsteadily at his watch. “It’s only going on one.”

Josephine laughs. “Yes, just going on one. I should head out, too. Tanner said he could drive me.”

“It isn’t often I get to drive, anyway, it will be nice to have the company.” Tanner shrugs, but his smile is warm, and James gives him a deliberate wink that he deliberately ignores. “It was a lovely party. Happy birthday, Q.”

“And to you,” Q replies sagely, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth before he laughs. “All of you. Everyone, I -”

They pause, collectively - some shrugging into their coats, others sliding on shoes. Q’s cheeks pinken and he laughs again, high and pleased and shy.

And loved. So very loved.

“Thank you.”

At the door, hugs are shared, and promises made for another such gathering. Inside jokes are murmured discreetly as slowly the assembled disperse to the two cars on the street. James and Q watch them until they pull away, and then James slips an arm around Q’s middle and drags him slowly back into the house. He’s still waving, teetering on his toes, as he’s reeled back inside.

“You,” James murmurs against Q’s neck, as the door clicks closed and locks clatter shut. “You are so spoiled.”

“I am,” agrees Q, grinning. He’s hardly standing at all, supported by James’ strength to lay lax back against him. He loops his arms up over James’ shoulders and pushes up to his toes. “I am also grateful.”

“Mmm.”

“Enormously grateful to everyone,” Q continues with a hiccup. “And I am -”

“Drunk.”

“A little.”

“Very.”

“Yes,” Q agrees, twisting in James’ arms to face him. “And happy.”

“Good,” James sweeps his messy curls from his face and kisses him, lips on lips, breath gentle and warm against skin. “I love you.”

“I love you,” Q grins, leaning in for another kiss which James happily grants him. Q is sloshed. He will have an incredible hangover the next morning and go into the office cursing and wearing sunglasses. He will message James about what a terrible day he’s having in hopes that his husband will send him a naughty photo to store on his phone.

It’s foolproof, really, this cunning plan.

“You threw me a surprise birthday party.”

“We did.”

“No one’s ever thrown me one before.”

“About time you had one then,” James tells him, catching his hand to lead him into a sweeping turn as Q giggles and presses against him. He clings tight to James’ shirt as he’s dipped, snorting delight, until scrabbling, he secures his arms once more around James’ neck and holds tight. “Would you like to do it again sometime?”

“Have a birthday? I should hope to have many more of them.”

Bond regards him with a lifted brow. “A get-together like this. Friends and family, dinner and drinks, though less of that for you next time.”

“I was entirely charming,” Q insists. “And yes. I think we ought to. There’s far less conflict of interest now, on either side of it. Next time we’ll cook -”

“Will we?”

“You’ll cook,” Q amends. He sweeps their lips together again, pushing up to his toes until finally Bond lifts him to dangle so his feet only brush the ground. Q parts their kiss with a grin. “Thank you, Mr. Bond, for a lovely evening.”

“Any time,” James tells him honestly, hoisting Q up higher to carry him upstairs. The remainder of the dishes can wait. The lights can stay on. Tomorrow morning when Q leaves grumbling for work, James will clean up and air the house and collapse onto the sofa to be walked upon by their felines.

“Stop squirming,” James laughs, holding his husband close as he wriggles like a fish on a hook against him. “Menace. You need to get to bed.”

“I am not remotely sleepy.”

“You say that until I toss you into bed.”

“Bollocks,” Q declares. He blinks at James, lips pulled beneath his teeth, and then releases them with a sputtering laugh. “ _Bollocks_.”

James sighs, smiling anyway at his husband’s childish delight. “No,” he says. “Not even remotely exhausted.”

“I was going to stay up and work tonight,” Q grins. He tightens his legs to rise higher up Bond’s body, he eases to slide back down. He adjusts and fidgets and James curses a little as he teeters on the top step before finding his footing again. “I’m full of tea and entirely awake.”

“And sugar,” James reminds him, amused, as he sets him to the end of the bed. “Tanner gave you sugar.”

“In two varieties of cake,” Q reminds him, sitting up to kiss James before slipping past him to the bathroom. Full of tea and alcohol indeed. James folds back the sheets and tosses the extra pillows to the chair. Desmond emerges from beneath the bed to jump lightly on top of it and settle to Q’s pillow. James reaches to scratch behind his ears until his little squeaking purr rumbles forth.

“You will hate yourself in the morning,” James warns him, when Q returns, shirt half undone and belt hanging loose. “When you wake and ask me to turn the sun off.”

Q squints. Biting his lip, twists his hand once around the end of his belt and pulls dramatically, nearly toppling as the buckle gets stuck against a loop. Q clears his throat and tries again, holding the buckle this time, and he frees the belt with a whizz of leather against wool. He smacks it limply against the floor.

"How very devious, Mr. Bond."

"Christ. When you say it like that, you sound like someone I'm meant to be hunting."

"But how can that be, Mr. Bond," he asks, idling closer as step by step his trousers slip to his ankles. James watches, eyes widening in anticipation of a fall, and settles back as Q frees one leg and then the other step by step. "Because - wait for the dissonant chord to play - I too am Mr. Bond."

Q drops the belt and with a bit of a wrestle manages shirt off, tossing it to float to the floor.

In just his socks, striped nearly to his knees, and pants - blue, today - he stands skinny and beautiful and flushed before James. Fists find their way to his hips and Q regards James over the rims of his glasses. He is hardly commanding this way, but far from unlovely. So James obeys as though he had used The Voice, as though he had whispered filthy in James’ ear about what would happen to him in the bedroom.

He won’t be able to get it up but James will hardly be the one to tell him that.

“You see,” he declares, “I was onto your game all along, 007. You thought you’d outsmarted me -”

“Never.”

“- but I saw right through you,” he continues, undaunted, dragging one knee up onto the bed, and then the other. “Or should I say - dramatic pause - through your shirt buttons!”

He stands like a baby deer using its legs for the first time, gawky and skinny-limbed, entirely unbalanced. When his feet plant, he sets one fist to his hip, and points with the other. Then he switches them, and tosses his hair like a stroppy pony.

“Haha! Just there, you see, a tuft of hair reveals itself. As if you thought you could get away with such misdeeds.” Desmond slips from Q’s pillow to the floor, and curls onto his computer chair instead. “Quite right, Agent Desmond, wait for me there.”

James gives the cat a brief look and returns his eyes to the man teetering above him. Q lifts his chin and keeps his eyes barely open as he looks down at James. Licking his lips, James raises an eyebrow, and folds his arms behind his head to make himself comfortable. He will unfold them quickly enough when Q inevitably falls on him.

“Will you reveal yourself before you have me, then?”

Q laughs, narrows his eyes, and brings two fingers to point to them, then to James’ own. “I’m onto you. I know your terrible seductive powers. But I suppose I could reveal myself, for you will never remember another name as you will remember this one - pause for effect - I… am Bond,” he declares, loud and proud. “Quinn Bond.”

James snorts, biting his lip hard not to laugh louder, as he watches his husband - the most stoic and quiet man in Q branch, the most professional - declare in his underwear and socks - one of which is slipping down to his ankle - that he is a secret agent. It’s the stuff of dreams.

“Oh my,” James sighs.

“You’ve heard of me, then,” Q says with a rakish grin. He tosses his hair from his eyes, and it slides directly back down again. “Of course you have. I am the greatest secret agent the world has ever known.”

“Not especially secret then, are you?”

Quinn blinks, considers the question, and then narrows his eyes again. “That’s enough lip out of you, villain. This attempted distraction, this distracting seduction, this - this seductive attempt to distract must not go unanswered.”

He steps forward, nearly losing his balance but planting his feet into the blankets before Bond has to grab him. Humming a dramatic vintage spy theme beneath his breath, Q wraps his hands together and presses his pointer fingers straight. He squints down the sights of his hand-gun and stops the song beneath his breath only to whisper, “You’ve come alone then. Cocky, aren’t you?”

“Increasingly so, the more you stand over me like this.”

Q twists suddenly, knees bent in a crouch. He levels his single-eyed gaze and his fingers on Turing, who chirrups at him as he passes by the end of the bed.

“Agent Turing! You’re meant to be in Barcelona!”

James takes the moment of distraction to sit up and grasp Q around the middle again, pulling him in a shrieking sprawl to the bed with him.

“He’s been reassigned,” James murmurs, kissing Q on the cheek before turning to press Q to the mattress instead. “It’s a setup, Agent Bond. Your team are not your own. They are, in fact, mine.”

“How is that possible?” Q asks, giggling when James presses a finger to his lips.

“Enough out of you. Something to do with bad filing at the agency. But you are surrounded, sir, by agents under my command, and me.”

“Betrayal,” Q whispers, eyes wide. “I knew those cats couldn’t be trusted.”

“Double-agents, all of them. Their loyalty only goes so far as the hand that feeds them the most treats.”

“How devious,” Q breathes. He spreads his fingers, wrists held lightly down by one of James’ hands. His body arches upward, sock sliding finally to his ankle as he drags a clumsy leg up against him and hooks it across his hip. “And now I’m caught.”

“Captive.”

“Compromised,” sighs Q, accenting every syllable far too heavily, and far too deliciously.

James ducks his head and presses a hot kiss to Q’s skittering pulse. “Whatever shall I do with you?” he murmurs, smiling when Q laughs and forces himself to regain his composure again.

“What were your instructions?” Q asks him. “Explicit. Explicit instructions.”

“If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”

“So you’re not to kill me,” Q reasons, sniffing and narrowing his eyes before a loud hiccup upsets him into laughter again. “What else could they want of me?”

James considers, his free hand stroking over messy warm hair and hot cheeks. He loves him, this strange and beautiful thing giggling beneath him. He loves him beyond words or reason. His heart feels like it’s swelling fit to burst.

“To make you scream,” James offers.

"Ghastly," Q exclaims in a whisper. His belly presses flush to James' stomach, their hipbones bumping. "I'll tell you this, Mr. Bond. I'm a tough nut to crack."

Bond pulls his lips between his teeth to resist his first, impulsive response to that, and lets them part against Q's throat instead. Lips tucked against the tender skin beneath his jaw, he suckles a firm kiss. Q keens, pitched high and pleased.

"Not so tough, then," he muses, when finally he relents.

"Is that all you've got?" Q squints, glasses skewed and smudged and his grin spread wide. "Do your worst. I'll never break."

James smiles at him, and reaches to take his glasses from his face. Gently, he sets them to the bedside table so they don’t get damaged or lost. “No,” he tells Q softly. “Never, I’m sure of it.”

He knows that at any other time, Q would be a leaking quivering mess, so close already that just peeling his pants off would be enough to have him cursing and squirming away from the anticipation of James’ mouth. But here he lies comfortably flaccid, drunk and warm and not at all sleepy, watching James with wide adoring eyes like a little lost deer. James snorts softly, before grasping Q by the hips and rolling them over again.

“Let’s see how long you can withstand, then,” James tells him, gently slapping Q’s thigh to have him shifting higher. He sits on James’ chest, then another slap brings him to his shoulders, then higher even than that. His hands set to the wall to balance, he watches James beneath him with narrowed eyes.

“Just words, you are,” Q tells him, smiling. “Just a clever tongue.”

“Sometimes that’s all you need,” James agrees, slipping his hands up beneath the leg of Q’s underwear and pushing it aside to bare him. He doesn’t give his husband a moment to reply, to think or catch his breath, before he tugs him down to sit and slips his tongue between Q’s cheeks to taste him.

The reaction is immediate - a giddy, stilted laugh that tilts tipsy into a moan. Q plants his hands against James’ chest, beneath the dastardly open buttons at the top of his shirt. Fingers splay through warm chest hair as he rocks his hips counterpoint to the steady lapping of his husband’s tongue.

He pleads his name as if begging mercy, but breathes a curse instead. The heat of Bond’s mouth against his hole is overwhelming, spreading with his speeding pulse, prickling goosebumps along his skin. A shudder ripples through him, and carries down Q’s body in a languid curve. He rubs himself against Bond’s tongue as much as Bond licks him, stroking his opening against his lips, hissing pleasure as stubble catches against his skin.

His pants hold him snared. An attempt to spread his knees out brings him only a little lower. Biting his lip, dragging fingernails across James’ chest, shoving a hand into his own hair to pull free a moan, Q alights with shameless pleasure. Nevermind that his cock scarcely stiffens, nevermind that the panted breaths from between his thighs gust chill pleasure across wet skin, Q rocks his body in ardent need for more, more…

“More,” he moans, slapping his hand back down to James’ chest and leaning upward. The elastic of his pants scrapes against his skin as Bond pulls him back down, and Q all too willingly sits again on his husband’s face. “I can,” he swallows, a laugh interrupting his own words. “I can take more.”

James delights in giving it.

There is a distinct joy in the challenge of trying to make him come, in this state. There is a distinct pleasure in knowing that were Q at his full capacities he would have made a mess of himself long ago, would have started on his sweet breathless apologies by now. But here he sits, thighs trembling and legs open and moaning wanton and so _loud_.

The neighbours will complain.

James laughs at the thought and arches his neck to suck against Quinn’s balls for a moment before spreading him gently with his thumbs again. He waits before kissing him again. He waits to lick. For long moments, he simply watches Quinlan quiver, twitches shivering down his thighs. Bond presses his thumbs inward just enough to grasp his cheeks more firmly, and when Q tenses in anticipation and the contact doesn’t come, he laughs sweet and helpless.

“James,” he begs. “Don’t - don’t do what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?”

“Nothing.”

Bond hums, leaning close enough that he can touch the tip of his nose to the point of Q’s tailbone. He touches no more than that, and Quinn whines, caught between a laugh and a moan.

“You’re _looking_ ,” he exclaims, biting his lip and releasing it with a rough sigh. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Is it?” James asks, leaning up to lick him again, long laps of his tongue that have Q relaxing to moaning pliancy again. “For whom?”

“For me.”

“Why?” Another lick, lips closing together to suck, an obscene noise that has Q biting his lip and pressing a hand to his face in pleasure.

“I don’t - oh, hell,” he groans, sitting back every time his hips rock downward, carrying his body in lazy thrusts. He finally slips a hand between his legs to tug, a little hard but not hard enough, and splays his knees wider. “This is better,” he laughs.

Bond hums his agreement, holding Q by his thighs when he tries to tilt away from the heady pleasure roiling through him. The sounds seem so loud, above the rush of blood hissing white noise between his ears. Clicks and smacks and pops of sucking kisses, each one felt like static sparks that jolt him moaning.

“James,” he manages, stroking himself a little faster. “James, I -” Another hum. Another giddy wriggle and another laugh. “I’ll be here all bloody night if you let me.”

“I’ve got nowhere to be,” James tells him, nuzzling against the sweet curve of Q’s thighs. He knows that soon he will get uncomfortably sensitive, unable to come, and they will stop, curl up together and sleep. He knows the cats will make their way to the bed in slow slinks and crawls and they will wake with two upon their heads and one nestled between them.

“And certainly nowhere I’d rather be,” he adds, pulling back just enough to slip his hands against Q’s sides and topple him to the bed again, gently slapping his hands away when Q tries to peel down his underwear. “No, no, those delightful things stay on. Let’s see what we have here.” Q snorts and squirms again, rolling onto his belly and trying to get away, finding that instead James just hums, contented, and settles Q on his knees this way. “Perfect. Stay just like that.”

Q reaches for the sock still up to his knee, and finds his fingers lightly peeled away. He reaches for the other, and James’ hand hovers against his until Q simply slides the lowered one back up again, grinning against the sheets. Any other attempt to adjust himself - to tuck his cock away, to untwist his pants, to do anything - is met with another easy, effortless removal of his fingers, always set back to the bed.

“Hell,” Quinn laughs. “If you don’t shag me into the mattress right this moment, 007…”

“Then you’ll what, Mr. Bond?” James asks him, bending down to kiss softly against one cheek, then the other, then against the fabric caught bunched against the curve of his ass. Q squirms more and James catches him to hold him still. Arching his shoulders back and bringing his hips in contact with Q’s ass, James lets him feel how hard he is from nothing more than eating Q out until he lost his breath.

“Complain to the Queen,” Q mumbles, and both of them break into giggles as James bends to kiss his back and shoulders, hands working his belt free.

“She will take immediate action,” James agrees. “And more paperwork will get mixed up and who knows who will be fucked then.”

Q makes a fussy sound, impatient but smiling wide. “Me first.”

“You almost sound like you want what you’ve brought upon yourself,” James muses. He sets a hand to Q’s back and warms the shiver that passes through him when Bond’s trousers whisper down his thighs. “Are you defecting?”

“You’ve got my heart. My cats. A cock I could suck until my jaw locks,” he reasons. “Where else could my loyalties possibly lie?”

“Traitor,” Bond murmurs affectionately, bending over Q’s body and laying hot kisses against his shoulders. He grinds against his ass, friction twisting the fabric of their pants between them. Quinn seeks out his hand and twines their fingers together, lips parted in a whimper against them.

“Come on then, 007,” he purrs, a flicker of The Voice calling Bond’s cock to attention. “We haven’t got all day - erm, night,” he corrects, grinning as his toes curl and he lifts a foot from the bed. “Unless your age is catching up with you, of course, which I’d say I understand completely except that I don’t, being as I’m only thirty now and you’re…”

A sharp slap has Q arching on the bed and stretching against it like a cat, moan pushed into the pillow.

“Forty-seven,” James tells him primly, stroking his palm against the pink skin before spanking him again for good measure. He smiles when Q responds as he always does to this, with another shiver and a confused mess of mutterings and giggling. He is entirely too beautiful, too drunk, too sleepy and too soft for this. But hell if James won’t oblige him in a thorough fucking.

He shoves his own trousers and pants down his thighs and strokes himself as he watches Q wiggle his hips playfully for him, pants still caught in a stretch and a tangle against him. Bond slides them aside again, just enough to reveal him.

Tempting, lovely thing.

James leans closer and quietly spits against his hole, using a thumb to stroke the slick fluid over him. The sound spills a wanton sound from his husband. Another dollop, louder this time, curls Quinn’s fingers trembling against the blankets, pushing them out of shape as he shoves himself backward. Bond slides his thumb inside. The stretch is rough and unrelenting, almost crude, but Q isn’t seeking tenderness anymore than James right now. All night the interplay of fingertips and chaste lips brushing against the other has sped their pulse. All night their lingering looks reminded them, unspoken, that when the party was over they’d find themselves just like this.

Bond holds Q’s hip and himself with the other hand. Blunt pressure gives way readily and Quinn’s muscles yield with a moan. It takes only a thrust to be nearly buried in him, Q’s body lax, his desire overriding any residual resistance. It speaks for him physically the words he said aloud.

He wants this.

He needs this.

 _More_.

James takes his time. Each thrust is calculated and slow, a twist of his hips teasing Q one moment and driving sounds of utter helpless need from him the next. Both half-dressed, both tired and somewhat sloshed, the lazy sex they have is the best ending to a day like this.

To any day, really.

“Do you know how much I love you, you silly beautiful man?” James asks him, leaning over Q’s body to whisper into his ear, smiling wide as he bites against his skin and draws his hands in warm massage against his sides and back. “I’ll keep you bloody quiet if you start telling me about how love is not something you can quantify. It needn’t be. I know how much I love you, and it’s a lot.”

“That’s hardly specific,” Q replies, laughing when James pushes in deeper in reprimand.

“To the moon and back,” James offers next, smiling when Q tuts. “More than the number of grains of sand on the beach.”

“Is love calculated numerically?”

“It’s going to be in spanks if you don’t hush,” Bond laughs against his shoulder. He nuzzles smooth skin and firm bone, relenting only when the steady pulse of his hips’ rounded thrusts sink Quinn to the bed. Cheek against his folded arms, lips parted with soft little sounds sighed free on every thrust, James reaches up to tuck his hair behind his ear, to better watch his pleasure spread pink beneath his eyes.

“I love you so much that sometimes I can’t breathe when I think about you,” Quinn murmurs, the clap of James’ thighs against his own lifting his words to a loud little moan. “It’s as if the thought of you fills me so entirely that my body can’t possibly hold it. I can’t even fit in air or I’d burst,” he laughs, and this sound too tilts to a resonant hum as he bends his back deeper, reveling in the sharp pressure each thrust presses to the small of his back.

“Oh good,” James sighs against him, his breathing cracking every few thrusts as he feels his body push him closer and closer to release. “I thought I was the only one.”

He can feel Q trying, desperately, to get his body to respond, but he is drunk and he is tired and he is perfect just the way he is right now. Always. James puts as much worship into pleasuring Q’s body as he always does, but hushes him when the soft sounds come from him that suggest disappointment in himself.

“Just let me,” James murmurs, kissing damp against Q’s cheek and up over his ear, behind it, snuffling against his hair until Q laughs. “You’re perfect.”

Q shakes his head with a wide smile, hiding it against the pillow. Every movement of James’ body moves his own, it moves the bed beneath them, the whole world seems to move in tandem with them now. Quinn lets his fingers slide free of his cock and focuses instead on James - the shortness of his breath against Quinn’s skin, the slick sweat pressed between their bodies. The coarse hair that rubs against his skin and his thick cock’s upward curve that presses just -

“There,” Q gasps, keening. “Right there. Don’t - don’t stop.”

Short and shallow, James fucks himself against Quinn’s prostate, one hand on his bottom to squeeze the cheek where his spanking faded pale again, the other stretching to Q’s hair. He doesn’t pull hard, just enough to steady them both, and lift Q’s face from the pillow. Jilted moans jerk into every breath, rising in pitch and volume. The neighbors are absolutely going to complain.

But it’s worth it - entirely and absolutely worth it - when an unexpected orgasm snaps Quinn’s body tight and breaks his breath into a silent gasp. His softened cock leaks thick drips into his pants, darkening damp spots that Bond has devoutly milked from him.

“Perfect,” James repeats, pressing his open lips to Q’s shoulder as one, two more thrusts pulls his own orgasm from him, hot and thick. The relief weighs on both of them, pulling their limbs to lead and their bodies heavier still. James knows that he should encourage Q to wash, now, so he doesn’t wake tacky and sore the next morning, just as he knows that were he to try and make Q stand, now, it would be like manipulating a marionette. 

So instead he hopes his husband will forgive him simply tucking his pants up around his bottom again, as he kisses Q’s tailbone.

“Beautiful, wonderful, mine,” he murmurs.

Already Quinn makes a fussy sound, eyes closed and smile drowsy. He fidgets and squirms in spent satisfaction and sprawls along his back. When Bond too succumbs, he’s surrounded in skinny arms and a single leg wrapped across both his own. Q seeks out his lips blindly, and keeps them together when he finds them.

“How spoiled I am,” he sighs, wriggling flush against James when he’s held in return.

The lights are on downstairs. Dishes fill the sink. They’re caught in a tangle of clothes and seeping sticky, and laying atop the blankets rather than beneath. Floorboards creak as one of the cats begins his return to claim the best spot atop their pillows, and somewhere unattended, Q’s primary cellphone beeps its lack of battery.

If this beginning of his thirties portends anything for the rest of them, Quinn imagines they will be his best years yet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The gentle movement of his thumb ceases as Q draws a sharp breath. He braces for the throat-click that betrays bile rising, and relaxes only when a thin hiccup sounds from beneath the sheets._
> 
> _“I can’t live like this,” Q whispers, desolate._
> 
> _“If it’s any comfort, you’ll never turn thirty again.”_
> 
> _Silence lingers between them, until Q finally murmurs, “Good.”_
> 
> Q pays the price for getting rowdy on his birthday.

Q greets the morning with a groan, and smacks himself in the face pulling the sheets up over his head. Despite James’ attempt to keep the drapes closed, late morning sun spills into their bedroom, warming the cats that curl against Q’s enrobed body.

“Alright, love?” James asks, watching the lump beside him and turning a page in the paper.

From beneath the blankets, a single utterance:

“Tell M I’m dead.”

“Dead at thirty,” James repeats. “Right you are.”

“Please,” Q mutters. “Whisper. You’re so loud.”

In answer, James rustles the paper before turning another page. He smiles when the lump beside him groans in displeasure and at the same time nuzzles towards him seeking warmth against his thigh. James sets his palm against Q’s head through the blankets and strokes gently.

“What can I do, darling?”

“Shoot me.”

“As the nuclear option, maybe,” James allows. “What are our options before that?”

“Stop talking, and destroy the sun.”

James hums, slipping one leg from bed to the floor, then the other. He keeps the blanket covering Q entirely as he bends to kiss the top of his head and moves to pull the curtains shut further. Then he makes his way downstairs, trailing the cats behind him as he goes.

“Your father can’t hold his liquor,” James tells them, reaching into the fridge for some food for them, carefully packaged away in Tupperware and marked with the date it was made and the date it should be eaten by. “Bloody lightweight.”

Desmond reaches to set his paws against James’ sleep pants and squeaks. Peter winds between his legs and Turing jumps deftly onto the counter from whence James calmly removes him.

“I might have to close the door for him for a while,” James continues, doling out their meals into individual bowls as he sets the kettle to boil. “He’s a right mess.”

He stands back and watches the cats all descend into each others’ dishes, beneath the discrete shelving that within it hides the automated feeding system. With a sigh he turns toward the sink, still piled high with dishes from the night before. Tanner’s spectacular tiramisu has dried where its remains sit on the table.

“This whole house is a mess,” Bond murmurs. “Let’s try to revive your father first, though, lads.”

James chooses the electric kettle, rather than the one that squeals. Tea, he decides, rather than coffee. He drops a few slices of bread in the toaster and washes dishes as the water boils and bread browns.

“How many drinks did he have? Three - maybe four?” Bond asks Peter, seated happily on his foot and licking his paw. “This was your doing, wasn’t it? You were meant to distract him from snatching up so much champagne.”

Peter’s only reply is to shift a little, slip lower where he sits, and lift a back leg next for licking. James supposes he shouldn’t expect anything less. The dishes are dripping dry by the time James wrangles the cake into the bin and the toast onto a clean plate. No spread, no butter, nothing to aggravate a sensitive stomach. He pours the tea, grabs some aspirin and takes the whole lot upstairs.

Opening the door is enough to make his lump of Q wriggle deeper into his little cave.

“Just leave me,” he moans. “Go on without me.”

“You pathetic ass,” James laughs gently, closing the door behind himself so the cats stay out. He sets everything to the bedside table and kneels beside it. He slips a hand beneath the blanket and smiles when a fevered forehead presses to it and Q groans. “I brought you aspirin,” he tells him. “And tea.”

“Tea?”

It’s such a pitiful inquiry that James has to try not to laugh, as far from The Voice as he could possibly imagine. He strokes back his hair and cups a hand against his cheek, sighing softly as he rests his chin to the mattress. “Drink it down with the aspirin and sleep a little longer until the pills start to work.”

The gentle movement of his thumb ceases as Q draws a sharp breath. He braces for the throat-click that betrays bile rising, and relaxes only when a thin hiccup sounds from beneath the sheets.

“I can’t live like this,” Q whispers, desolate.

“If it’s any comfort, you’ll never turn thirty again.”

Silence lingers between them, until Q finally murmurs, “Good.”

“But you will be thirty-five,” James encourages him. “At thirty-five I got so pissed I think I woke up in another country.”

“James.”

“And when I turned thirty-five you would have been - Christ. You would have been eighteen.”

There is no answer from beneath the blankets but Q does nuzzle into James’ palm more. James strokes his cheek and under his eye softly, over and over.

“I’m a cradle robber,” James tells him fondly. He feels Q’s unsteady smile widen against his palm. Not so ruinous, then, that he can’t be pleased by James’ illicit confessions. Not so shattered that he can’t delight in Bond’s ignominious life choices.

“Dirty old man,” Q murmurs fondly. “I was just entering university, then.”

“Wide-eyed and innocent, no doubt.”

“Hardly,” snorts Q. “I went to Eton.”

Bond laughs low, careful to keep the sound contained within a breath. He withdraws his hand only as the slow slug-like shuffle of his partner draws him up from beneath the blankets. Clad in most of last night’s clothes, squinting narrow from behind a mop of hair, Q leans back against the headboard of the bed with a resolutely displeased hum.

“You’re lovely,” James tells him. Q’s hum deepens in something like warning, but more akin to a puppy trilling at an older dog than a proper growl. He takes up the tea in one hand, and the aspirin in the other, and offers them out. Q takes them each in turn, gingerly swallowing the pills and tea sip by sip.

“Were you at MI6 by then?” He asks, tucking another hiccup behind his hand.

“Two years out from it,” James tells him. “I was a commander of the Royal Navy then.” He watches Q's gaze drift to him as his lips seek the rim of his mug again and he sips. “You can't be a nondrinker in the Navy.”

Q grins, nose wrinkling before he shakes his head to temper his expression, and his pleasure topples to a groan of discomfort. He seeks out blindly to rest his hand against the nightstand and steadies himself. A moment passes, two, and he relaxes enough to sip his tea again.

“Neither can you be during freshers week at Oxford,” he mutters. “A commander at thirty-five?”

“You say that as if you’ve not read it from my files a dozen times over.”

“A hundred,” snorts Q, smiling slightly. “I still prefer to hear you talk about it. You’d not have given me the time of day.”

“As a commander?”

“As anyone.”

“You underestimate how ravishing you are when you’re grumpy,” James tells him. “And when you’re playing hard to get.”

“Shut up.”

James doesn’t. He stays seated at Q’s bedside and rests a hand against his thigh. He tilts his head to rest on his shoulder and nods. “Yes, at thirty-five. I applied to work for M, and I think they paid her to take me.”

“God,” Q laughs, cradling his tea in his hands and bringing it to his lips. “All at once the best and most questionable decision she ever made.”

“I’m sure she’d agree,” Bond smiles. He eases up slowly from the floor, and with ginger movements, settles to sit on the edge of the bed instead. Q hiccups sharply when James reaches to his cheek, but his palm settles cool against flushed skin, and Quinn sighs long.

“They took me right out of university. No idea who gave them my name, even still. I’ve checked my own records and it’s redacted. I remember meeting with them in my bloody commons room. Would you have really have tried to - you know -”

“I assure you I don’t.”

“ _Seduce_ me?” Q grins, squinting through his one open eye before resting his cheek against James’ hand.

“Into the Service?” James asks, laughing. “No, god no, I would have told you to run, fast, in the opposite direction while you were still young. For sport?” He narrows his eyes in pleasure and allows a teasing grin. “I could have tried. But lord knows you’d have had me crawling after you on my knees with how you would have strung me along.”

This time when Q’s lips part, it isn’t with a jerk of his diaphragm or a wave of nausea. A smile tilts one corner up higher than the other. His nose wrinkles.

“A naval commander nearly twice my age,” he muses. “Lingering around the pub, out of place, seeking for so much as a glance in his direction. Yes,” Q decides. “I’d have enjoyed that very much, amidst the dreadful embarrassment I’d have undoubtedly felt.”

“You’re lovely when you blush,” James reminds him. “That would hardly have deterred me.”

“Dirty old man,” grins Q, passing his husband the empty mug and sprawling slowly to his stomach. He grasps a piece of toast and sets it between his lips, waiting until it’s all but melted on his tongue before extracting it again. “Imagine shagging in my room at Magdalen,” he murmurs, amused.

“I’ve imagined shagging you in so many places,” James admits, laughing, as he swings his legs around to lie on the bed beside Q, arms crossed and chin atop. “Tell me about your room.”

“Large, with revolting green wallpaper, a creaking desk and a tiny bed.”

“I’d have had you up against the door, then,” James tells him. “To make sure no one came in to interrupt.” A blink, a raised brow from Q as he slips the toast into his mouth again, and James bites his lip, delighted. “You would have had me up against the door,” he amends, “trousers around my thighs and hands above my head, buggering me senseless.”

“I’d have told you off for staring at me so much.”

Bond hums, eyes narrowing with a smile. “Would I have?”

“Stared?” Q asks, brows raising. “I imagine so. You like grabbing my hair, and it was even more unruly then. My glasses thicker, before I found a better pair. And I was constantly,” he says, “endlessly, ravenously horny.”

Despite his attempts to remain quiet to soothe his husband’s hangover, James laughs low against his hand. Quinn’s smile draws up his eyes as he slowly devours his toast, pleased by James’ pleasure, amused by his amusement. He slips the last bit of crust against his tongue and stretches for the next piece, squeaking soft alarm when James rests his cheek against the back of Q’s shoulder.

“The floor, I think. That’s where I’d have wanted you. The tacky old rug bunched up beneath your knees. Ancient floorboards creaking under our buggery as they have beneath that of so many others at Magdalen,” Q muses.

“I wonder how many poor boys lined up, hoping, _aching_ , that Quinlan Holt would see them and drag them into his room for a thorough fucking,” James wonders aloud, watching over Q’s shoulder as this piece of toast, too, gets smaller and smaller with every new bite. “I would have been hopeless for you.”

“Anyone who was never saw the inside of my room again,” Q laughs quietly. “I was a right monster to my partners.”

“And crueler still to those you kept around, I’m sure,” James agrees, kissing behind Q’s ear so his husband squirms, contented, on the mattress. “Now,” he continues, voice quieter, lower. “Perhaps you found yourself upon the ocean one day, wandering a large ship, what then?”

“Wouldn’t have happened,” Quinn tells him, turning to narrow his eyes at James.

“Then, perhaps, assume that a nasty hangover found you in a tiny cabin onboard one of those ships.”

“You had a cabin?”

“And boy, would I have enjoyed my cabin boy, if I had found you in it,” James purrs.

Q bites his bottom lip rather than his toast’s remains, grinning bright before releasing his lip in consideration. He wriggles a little closer to his husband, skinny body pressed flush against his side for warmth and stability alike. After a moment, he shakes his head.

“Even the thought of being at sea makes me unwell,” he laughs. “Especially now.”

“Steady seas,” James tells him. “As level as earth.”

“Still unwell,” Quinn decides after a moment, snorting a laugh against James’ hair. He tilts his nose through the short strands, golden bright and silvering more and more each day they share together. “I’m sure you’d know the fix for that, though. You’re a know-it-all. A distraction, from the roiling movement of the water beneath us. That’s what you’d say, to remind me that the ship’s still moving, and to pull my attention toward you.”

“Would it work?”

“Did you wear a uniform?”

“Every day.”

“Then yes,” laughs Quinn. “God, yes. I imagine it would. You’d not be able to stop me dropping to my knees.”

James turns to kiss his cheek, his lips lingering against Q’s smooth skin before he pulls back and just noses against him. James lets Q finish his breakfast at his own pace and takes all the dishes when he’s done.

“Shall I let the cats in?”

“God,” Q sighs, rolling to his back again. “Yes. Please.”

“You won’t attempt a shower?”

“Nope,” Q sniffs and draws a hand over his eyes in a slow and sleepy rub. “Not yet.”

James watches him a moment, settling comfortable again. The aspirin will help him sleep, it will help him when he wakes, and there will be a glass of water and more medication waiting for him when he does. Without a word, James draws the door open and two cats come pouncing in immediately, and up onto the bed.

“Darlings,” Q exclaims, with more vigor than Bond has seen in him all morning, furtive fantasies and offerings of dry toast alike. “Desmond, come here, I need you immediately.”

He grasps the fluffy pillow of a cat and curls to his other side, back towards James, wrapped around the happy creature that squeaks and rattles a high purr from the affection. Quinn buries his face against him and sighs long. He doesn’t let his eyes close for more than a moment, because the room starts to spin when he does. He doesn’t settle back to sleep, now all too keenly aware of the ache in his backside.

He remembers leaping heroically onto the bed, and making grand declarations of nonsense.

He remembers clambering, rather, clumsily up to the mattress and nearly falling.

He remembers winding up seated on Bond’s face, riding his tongue shamelessly.

A languid stretch brings pangs of pain up to the small of his back and Quinn smiles, rosy-cheeked and satisfied. Turing joins them, raising a paw and slapping it softly down against Desmond, who yields no more than a peep in response. Q squints. “Be nice to your brother, Turing, he’s my only hope for healing. James,” he asks, leaning back to watch him as he takes up Turing to cradle against his chest. “It’s safe to assume word’s spread by now, but would you let M know I’m under the weather today?”

James’ smile says enough, and Q ducks his head in thanks, nuzzling against his cat. His agent doesn't stay to bother him. He takes the mug and plate downstairs and fries himself some eggs as he sets coffee going. The television has nothing good on whatsoever but he lets it quietly play regardless as he works.

Peter lazes in the little slice of sunlight in the kitchen, all four paws hanging off the edge of the counter and the tip of his tail flicking gently up and down. Turing remains resolutely tethered to James, mashing and mewling his unpleasant but happy little sounds. James calls him an alien, and takes the trilled response as a confession.

After breakfast, James makes his way upstairs again to find Q dozing, arms loose and lips parted, a soft snore coming from his lips with every breath. With a smile, Bond sets a glass of water to Q's bedside table and climbs into bed with him, atop the covers. He hushes his husband’s fussy little curse, fitting their bodies together chest to back. He wraps an arm over Q and scritches behind Desmond’s ears, the littlest and fluffiest spoon in their embrace. The cat purrs brightly, and James hushes him too.

Bond's cynicism has always outweighed his sense of romance, although he puts up a good front of it when duty calls. But even with his hard-won, blood-stained sense of realism, it's impossible for him to imagine an iteration of their lives in which they'd not spark a fire together upon contact. Despite the scandalous difference in their age, he'd have been drawn to Q had they met while Q was at university. His imperious disdain and overt cleverness would have been intoxicating; his appearance, as lovely then as now. Had they met in the Navy, nevermind their difference in ranks, Bond would have sought out his company in whatever way they could share it.

He tells him that he loves him, the words pressed warmly to his shoulder, and smiles when Q snuffles in sleep.

Quinn will wake up in better form than he did before, but feel worse for it in other ways. He's in need of a shower. In need of food, and more water. He's in need of soft clean clothes and a quiet movie.

No, need isn't the right word. He's in want. Q doesn't need Bond to care for him, coddle and shelter him. Q's self-sufficient brilliance stands on its own. But Bond wants to give those things to him, as much as he wanted him to be surrounded by his family the night before. James can hardly think of a better measure of love than that - caring for another because it's a pleasure, rather than a necessity.

"Bond."

Quinn's murmur is quiet, slurred sleepy and sweet, but enough to stir James from the near-sleep into which he'd settled.

"Yes, Q?"

"You're behind."

"Behind you, yes."

"No," Q says. "Behind schedule. On your mission."

"What mission is that, quartermaster?"

"To destroy the sun."

James checks his watch and hums, curling his arm securely over Q's chest in the space that Desmond has since vacated. "Couple more hours and it'll be gone."

"Poor form, 007."

“I’m sorry, darling,” James tells him, nuzzling into his hair and letting his eyes close again. 

James has never felt this security with another. He has never felt that something like this would last with anyone else at all. Part of it was the work, the innate knowledge that one day he would not return cocky and victorious, but fall victim to a beating too heavy or a bomb better placed. But another part was also the loneliness instilled in him from youth, without cruelty or intent, of course, but there all the same: everyone leaves him. Love lingers and lasts for a while but then it is inevitably swept away and never replaced.

But here, in his arms, lies the stubborn exception to that rule. Q has not left. He has stood by James at his worst and most despicable. He has stood by him at his weakest and he loves him all the same.

That is worth everything in the world.

James knows he's slept because he wakes when Q wriggles beneath his arm. It's merely to turn, but enough to upset both of them from slumber. Q blinks, eyes heavy with sleep and nose pink from how warm he is. James smiles and leans in to kiss him.

“Hello stranger,” he murmurs.

Q wrinkles his nose and wriggles closer. "Hello, handsome."

Whereas before Quinn felt as if he'd long ago expired, crumbled to dust and blown asunder by any light or sound or movement, he now feels as if he's only approaching his expiry rather than past it. A progression, then, backwards to wholeness. It's an improvement, to be certain.

Nose beside nose, he kisses James' cheek. He avoids a proper kiss, certain that he'll taste like death, and instead nestles beneath Bond's chin. Breathing softly against the hollow of his throat, Q splays his fingers against James' soft undershirt, humming pleasure to feel the warmth of his body beneath.

"Fancy meeting you here," Quinn murmurs, smile spreading.

“I just wandered in,” James tells him. “Was in the neighbourhood. Didn't expect such a wonderful reception, I might stick around if you don't mind.”

“Please do,” Q laughs, settling in against him comfortably. Where the cats are, James can't guess. The living room perhaps, soaking up the last of the sun. In the kitchen, exploring the high altitude that is the shelving unit.

Home and safe, that he knows for certain.

“We should wash up,” James says. “Soak up all that hot water. Then curl on the sofa with the telly until dinner.”

“Dinner?”

“Take out,” James tells him. “Something filthily greasy.”

Q's stomach gnarls aloud before he can answer and he laughs a little, snorting as he does. "I could wreak havoc on a burger and chips right now. I dreamed we were in Paris again."

"Shall I go and get it for you?"

"From Paris?"

James hums. "Just a quick hop over. I'll be back by morning."

He makes as though to stand and Q laughs again, clever hands seeking down his body. One settles to his hip, the other to the waistband of his trousers. He teases a fingertip beneath, across the path of hair leading lower.

"Don't you dare go anywhere," Q sighs. "What would I do if my condition worsens?"

"You seem in remarkably good spirit now. A credit to your youth that you're even able to - Christ," Bond laughs, as Q plunges a warm hand into the front of his pants. He presses upward against Quinn's palm, again through the tunneled fingers that circle him. A third slow thrust rocks backward and away, with James' hands against Q's shoulders and his lips against his brow. "A bath."

"You're a cruel taskmaster."

“And you are a terrible and most favored distraction,” James tells him fondly. With another kiss, James pulls free and moves to start the shower for them, returning to dramatically yank the blankets off his husband.

The sheets will need to be changed, laundry done. One before dinner and the other certainly the next day, or the next. James grins at Q who stretches like a cat in bed before, with a groan, pushing up on all fours to crawl to the edge of the bed and slip off it to the floor.

“I need to -”

“Take your time.”

Bare but for his pants and his socks, now slouched down around his ankles, Q manages to his knees and then continues backward. He sits on the floor, at the end of the bed, legs crossed and head against the mattress. A sustained sound of displeasure emanates from the little quartermaster.

"My pants are stuck to my skin and my arse aches."

"The two aren't unrelated," Bond observes.

"Both your fault."

"I was at risk of being compromised."

Q recalls, now, staggering about the bed as Quinlan Bond, secret agent. He recalls the betrayal of his companions, who fled for quieter quarters and returned later for pets. He recalls James beneath his arse, eating him out with such vigor that...

"Christ," sighs Q. He slides a hand across his bare thigh and starts to reach for himself, but decides against it. Instead, he holds up both hands to James, brow creased. "You did this to me. You can damn well help me up, 007."

“I am proud to take full responsibility,” James tells him, stepping nearer and pulling his husband up to press against him chest to chest. With a smile, he kisses his cheek again, childishly delighted by the fact that he simply can.

“You’re awful.”

“Shall I escort you to the shower?”

“Yes, Q says. “And into it. And follow.”

“Are those direct orders, then?”

“Beyond contestation,” Q tells him, nodding seriously. James nods back, and with a sigh ducks down to hoist Q against him to carry to the bathroom. Q clings to him, another side of the stroppy proud creature that expected - no, demanded - his attention the night before, but no less James' own. He wraps skinny arms around his neck, and hooks his legs at the ankles. Held snug and small and secure in James' arms, his handler hums a sound of pleasure.

"You're so strong," Quinn murmurs.

"Or you're just very small."

"Too small?"

"Perfectly so," James assures him, stroking his curls as he sets Q down to the ground. When Q lifts a finger, Bond obediently turns. With a groan, Q relieves himself, arm against the wall. He brushes his teeth. A few shivering shimmies after free him from his clothes, sticking filthy to his skin. He makes a face and deposits them into the laundry bin - a recent development for them, in contrast to his tendency to leave his things strewn about.

He plucks at James’ shirt as he passes and the agent happily removes it. The bathroom is filled with steam already from how long the hot water has been running, and James watches Q step into the tub before he follows.

Q has a habit of either luxuriating in the hot water or taking a shower so quick that the water is barely on. Today, he immediately scrubs himself clean before turning his face to the stream to enjoy the warmth of it. James steps in behind him and sets his lips to his shoulder, his fingertips to his hips.

“How do you think the evening went?” he asks, amused to see what Quinn remembers. 

"It was lovely," he says, "once the shock passed. Well done with the briefing, Bond, barring my little slip-up," he adds with a snort.

"I've had some experience in espionage," James responds, amused. "I ensured that we all knew our stories thoroughly. Did you know Tanner worked at a bank before MI6?"

"I did."

"Did you know Sheppard is only twenty?"

"She was eighteen when we recruited her."

"Christ," James laughs. "You'll be pulling them from preschool at this rate."

Scrubbing his face with a long and happy groan against his fingers, Q squints against the water to rinse the suds away. His lips part with a hard sigh, and he pushes his hair back from his face. James' fingers tickle Q into goosebumps as he shampoos his curls.

"'You'll have them writing code before they can even speak'," murmurs James, and Q tenses a little. "You seemed almost amenable to the idea last night. Your mother certainly is."

"Are you?"

“To having children?”

“Mmhm.”

James considers, letting his fingers massage Q’s scalp until his husband is nearly purring from the feeling.

“It was never a viable possibility before,” James admits. “Both with the job and the lack of partner who would wish to bear them. I’ve always liked children. Perhaps because I know so few of them.”

Q laughs a little, taking the cue from James' kiss against his shoulder to step under the spray again. "I'm not sure I'd have any idea what to do with one."

"You are a quick learner," James reminds him. "And I'm a good read of people."

"Are you trying to convince me?"

"Not if you don't want to be convinced."

Q's curls lengthen long and dark against his neck, soap spilling thick down his back. James doesn't deny himself the opportunity to watch the bubbles slip across the dimples in his back and past, shining sleek against his bottom.

Exhaling hard against the spray, Q trades places with James. He lowers himself back to slide down and sit against the side of the tub - bony knees up and arms looped around them - to await its filling when James is done scrubbing, and enjoying the view in the meantime. It seems unwise, with their line of work. It seems unwise with their histories. Already Q worries - for a child they can't bear together, for a child he's never met.

"I worry enough," Q decides. "Every time you hop around to the shops. You worry enough, when I don't phone as frequently to keep contact. It doesn't end when we leave work. It doesn't end when we leave the job. We are to assume that we're forever Persons of Interest to parties that wish ill upon us."

His attention falters a little, as Bond rubs a soapy hand across his belly. "It isn't the end of life to work for the Service, unless your life actually ends in service," he considers. "Plenty of people retire and live normal lives after. They use safety services, witness protection, they move to an area easily monitored..."

"Are you taking us to Scotland?" Q asks, eyes drawn up in gentle amusement.

“I own the land that mess of a house was built on,” James reasons, rinsing away the shampoo and waiting for it to drain before setting the plug into the tub and settling into it as Q has. “We could build another. But in truth I wouldn't put any kid through that kind of suffering. It's a dismal place.”

He smiles and reaches out to brush his knuckles down Q's leg, smiling when thin fingers curl around his own. With a gentle tug, James shifts to set his hands on either side of the tub and waits for Q to move his knees and straighten his legs so he can lie atop him. Q nuzzles against James' shoulder, lips parting and closing as water rains down against Bond's back. James rests his cheek against Q's shoulder in turn, and closes his eyes as warm arms enfold him, thin thighs squeezed against his sides.

"You turned out alright," Q allows after a moment, breathing a laugh when he feels James' lips twist wry.

"Only?"

"Some of the time," he clarifies, "you're alright."

"There's a bloody glowing endorsement," Bond snorts, kissing the taste of mint from his husband's lips. They spend a moment so, mouths twining slowly together, tongues tracing softly. Their kisses click amidst the spattering shower spray. Q rests a hand against his cheek and rests their brows together, shaking his head a little.

"Is it cruel if I tell you that my heart aches - a full and agonizing and lovely ache - when I think about it," Q asks, "but that in tedious, tiresome objectivity it scares me too much to seriously consider? I know you'd not let anything happen. I know if anything did, you'd fix it. But Christ, what if you couldn’t? Those ‘if’s... it's as horrific a thought as it is beautiful to imagine us having that. Is that terrible? I shouldn't have said anything," he sighs.

James turns against him, one arm slipping beneath Q to wind around his back and hold him near. For a while he says nothing, but the silence isn't tense between them, it merely holds and hovers in place.

“It’s hardly terrible,” James assures him. “I think that the woe of every parent is to assume that everything in this world will be out to get their child, to hurt or corrupt them. Our situation is a somewhat special one,” he admits, amused, “but that makes us more prepared for the simplest of problems, as well as the most complicated.”

“You think I shouldn't worry,” Q says.

“No, I think you have every right to worry. I think you should, any thinking adult human being should. But I am saying it needn't be prohibitive.” James pushes up a little to see Q properly, and smiles at him. “I love you, and that is a guarantee I know I can make you for life. Children?” He shrugs. “I would share that with you, perhaps someday. But I would hardly love you less without them.”

Q's smile widens, the pressure against his heart easing a little more with every breath, with every kiss, with every nuzzle against the other's cheek. Perhaps when they're both retired, years away from MI6, with nothing of interest to anyone who might come for them. Perhaps then they'll share that, with more security than apprehension. Perhaps they won't, and the feeling that tugs at them both now will fade peaceably away.

Whatever comes, they have this. Hard-won, held fast, they have this.

"James," Q whispers against his mouth, hands to his chest, head tilting aside. He squirms beneath ceaseless kisses, stretching out his toes to turn off the spray. James' weight bears him down beneath the water and Q grasps him tight. He kisses him firmly, until he's brought back up again with a laugh and a spray of water.

"One more thing," Quinn asks him, arms around James' neck. "Then I promise you can kiss me as much as you like."

"Anything, darling."

"Will you please order take-away? I'm bloody well going to faint if I don't eat something."

James hums and kisses him, shifting a little. The water sloshes softly against the sides of the tub.

“Thai?” He asks. Q groans.

“Yes.”

“With enough heat to burn your taste buds off entirely?”

“You know me so well.”

“Iced tea?”

“Please.”

“Stay,” James kisses him softly. “Right here. I will be but a moment.”

Q bites his lip and grins, turning to his stomach. He runs a hand across his bottom, dipping a finger against himself just to feel how stretched he remains from the night before. With a pleased blush from his own naughtiness, he watches the water skim down Bond's body and soak to the rug below.

"Oh," he says. "One last thing, 007."

With a deep sigh, James turns to him with a smile. His brow lifts.

"Don't you dare put any clothes on," murmurs Q. "At least until it arrives, then you'll definitely want to do that."

“Will I?” James asks, winking before taking down a towel to dry himself. He leaves the bathroom naked and when he takes up the phone he stands by the window to order. He gets enough to last them through dinner and into leftovers the next day, enough to compensate for the inevitable theft by the cats.

Once done, still nude, James moves downstairs. 

Q lays in the water and allows himself to relax. There is a residual throb in his head from the headache that morning but nothing so cruel as it was. The warmth is welcome. Feeling clean is welcome. Knowing his husband is meandering around their home bare as the day he was born is incredibly welcome.

“God,” Q sighs, slipping down beneath the water and spreading his hands over his face. He confesses in a silent, bubbling breath how very much he loves that man, and with his not-very-secret secret secured, emerges with a deep breath. Turing lets loose a creaky mewl from the middle of the bathroom and Q squints at him above the edge of the tub.

“You’re slipping, Agent Turing,” he murmurs. “You’re meant to be running observation.”

A soft sound pushes out the cat’s sides, just a little whine. Q clucks.

“It's not too late to make this right, Double-Oh Kitten, if we move quickly.” Q pushes himself to standing and sways, dizzy. He catches a hand against the wall and curses, waiting a moment to steady himself, and only then reaches for the towel. “Not too quickly, perhaps.”

He dries himself and loops the towel around his waist, bare feet clicking against the floor as he ducks to pick up Turing. There's a bit of a fuss but he hushes him softly, breathing warmth against his neck. Q takes up his glasses from beside the bed, and with a whisper, makes his way to the door and downstairs.

"Quietly now. We mustn't draw his attention from the footy."

The stairs, however, betray Q in his descent. Nearly dropping his glasses, and Turing in turn, hardly helps. Turing betrays him yet again with a loud mewl and Q has to try not to laugh. He walks as quietly as he can manage to the back of the couch, anyway. Slipping Turing to the floor, stands again only to find James' arms around his back and the room upside down as he's pulled over onto the sofa.

"Damn," Q grins, as he twists to lay his head in James' lap. "Caught again."

“An extraordinary quartermaster,” Bond smiles, “and a terrible spy.”


End file.
